


A Solstice Gift

by adventurerofthewrittenworld



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Christmas Special, Elriel, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 03:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16925970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adventurerofthewrittenworld/pseuds/adventurerofthewrittenworld
Summary: Set five years after the war, in Velaris, on Winter Solstice. Fluffy, christmas-themed elriel and some brief mentions of the rest of the IC.





	A Solstice Gift

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I wrote this for @rhysanoodle for @rosehallshadowsinger 's Christmas Fanfic and Fanart Exchange on Tumblr. Also posted on my tumblr >> @razrushya

Fresh snow powders the cobbled streets. The stores are bustling with last-minute shopping, the streets full with children’s laughter, the snow still falling in flakes from the sky. Feyre and Rhys had taken a leaf out of Viviane and Kallias’s book this year for Solstice, and hired a few street musicians, the sweet, jolly tunes filling the streets with warmth. Inside the massive estate Rhys had gifted Feyre in the Solstice just five years before, Elain is busy frosting the baked delicacies she and the twin wraiths had prepared a few hours earlier.

Elain swats away Cassian as he approaches her with a bundle of twigs and mistletoe.

“You’re getting mistletoe in my cupcakes,” she chides, sliding her tray far away from the dangling mistletoe in his arms. He grunts, dumping the unattractive pile of decorations on the table.

Azriel, thankfully, had stepped in again this Solstice to ensure the decorations weren’t left entirely to Feyre and Cassian. He’s standing in front of the doorway now, helping Feyre hang some mistletoe and sparkling ornaments in the wide archway.

Elain feels a warmth bloom in her cheeks as she watches him. They had been slowly courting each other these past few months. As if they had all the time in the world, because they did. And she didn’t want to rush this fragile, budding thing between them. She wanted to explore it, slowly, taking her time and going through all the tiny experiences that led up to liking someone. She wanted to hold his hand, to feel him beside her, to learn all the things about him, what made him smile, what had made him into the person she was coming to love.

When she turns back to Cassian again, there’s a knowing look on his face. The blush on her cheeks deepens, and she focuses perhaps a bit too intently on the cupcakes.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping them decorate?”

Cassian, mercifully, doesn’t comment on her blush, or the fact that she had been obviously staring at Azriel, and Elain realizes that Cassian probably understands her longing better than anyone.

Nesta had bought a new apartment on the other side of the Sidra last year, and Cassian often visited her there. They were friends now, but it had taken a long time for them to get to that point. Nesta hadn’t shared with Elain all the details of the time she had spent with Cassian in the Illyrian Mountains, but Elain could take a guess. The Illyrian commander looked at her wishfully sometimes, but he kept his distance. And for now, that left that them at friends. Friends who bickered and fought and drove the rest of them crazy. Still, Elain was happy beyond words that both of her sisters were in a better place than this time five years ago. And she was grateful, too, that she, herself, was in a better place.

Cassian says with a frown, “They’ve kicked me out of the decorating committee.”

Elain stifles a smile. “Oh?”

Cassian pretends to look offended. “They said I had poor taste.”

Elain tries not to glance at the pile of twigs on the floor. Instead, she asks, “Where’s Mor?”

A voice answers behind Cassian. “Sleeping,” Feyre says, approaching the table where Elain had arranged her ensemble of desserts. “And hungover.”

Feyre picks up a cupcake with a green frosted pine tree on it. “And Rhys is—”

“Primping,” Azriel says, amusement sparkling in his eyes. Feyre hums in agreement, and then she and Cassian fall into conversation as they make their way over the remaining pile of decorations.

Elain feels something flutter inside her, rapidly awakening with every step Azriel takes towards her.

“The cupcakes look nice.”

Elain blushes a little. “Thank you.”

A small smile graces his lips, and he says, “You look nicer.” Elain’s blush deepens.

“You’re not usually this forward,” she says, glancing up at him in between frosting the cupcakes.

He smiles again, a smile he reserves just for her, and Elain’s heart flutters without her permission.

“Maybe Rhys is rubbing off on me.”

“I love seeing them both happy, but I could do without Rhys making bedroom jokes during dinner.” She makes a face at the memory of one of those dinners and Azriel laughs.

“I can bear those dinners and his jokes if it means seeing you more often,” he says, and she can sense the genuine words underneath the lighthearted tone.

Elain can’t stop smiling. She can’t stop feeling giddy with excitement whenever he looks at her like that. Whenever he smiles at her, and laughs at what she says. “We should see each other more often. Outside of just these gatherings.” And then, because she’s feeling unusually bold from the wine and his compliments, she adds, “I miss you when you’re not around.”

He inclines his head. “I would like that very much, Elain.”

She beams a little, and then finishes touching up the last cupcake and places it in the tray. As she rinses off the excess sugar from her hands, Azriel picks up one of the frosted delicacies from the table.

She’s drying her hands on her apron when he returns, holding it out for her.

“Here. You haven’t tasted it yourself yet.”

She takes it from his hand and he watches as she tries a bite, and then hums in contentment and approval at her own work.

“It’s perfect.”

Azriel is about to say something when he hears Rhys’ voice in the hall. “I don’t know about you all, but I’m starving.”

“Let’s go,” he says, nodding his head towards the dining hall. “Let’s go wish your sister happy birthday.”

❖❖❖

After dinner, she notices Azriel slip away to the roof with a glass of wine, and she waits all of a few minutes before she follows him up. 

Azriel is standing by the railing, at the edge of the rooftop. She admires him for a moment, taking in his features, half obscured by shadows. Not his own shadows, but the still, lifeless shadows of the surrounding buildings. His shoulders are relaxed for once, his dark hair in his eyes, the breeze ruffling it, his hand holding a glass of the fancy wine Rhys only brings out on Solstice. On the day celebrating his mate. Mate. She thought of her own mate, so far away in another court, perhaps reading the letter she’d sent to wish him happy solstice. But she didn’t feel for her mate as Feyre did. She wanted the slow, sweet, soft fragile bond humming between her and Azriel. She wanted to explore it, this new wonderful thing they had. This male who had been so kind to her in her darkest hour. Who had seen the girl she was, who had understood her pain and her desire, and stood by her through it all.

She comes up next to him, stands beside him on the railing. Her hair blows a little in the wind.

“Did you have a good time?” she asks without turning her face towards him. Below them, there are people talking and laughing, out on the streets on Solstice night, playing with the snow. She looks down at the children shrieking with delight as they bombard each other with snow, and she wonders at her own future. At the children she might have. For all the visions she’d had, none had been about her. None had shown her what her own future might hold. She didn’t dare to wonder whether her future would include the shadowsinger.

“Yes. Did you?”

She turns her face towards him when he answers, and she notices that his shadows are nowhere to be seen. They’re almost never there when she’s alone with him, and sometimes she wishes they were. If only because they are a part of him, and she wants him to show her, to share with her, all the parts of him.

“Why are your shadows never here when I’m around? Is it me? Do they not like me?”

“No,” he breathes, facing her fully. “Never. I send them away, Elain, because I don’t want them whispering in my ear what you’re thinking or what my spies somewhere else are doing. When I’m with you, Elain,” he says, smiling faintly as he takes her hands in his, “I want it to be just us. Just you and me, without anything whispering in my ear, telling me what to do or distracting me from you. From being with you, from just enjoying your company and your presence.”

“Oh,” she says, not expecting this answer, and absolutely floored by his words. A wave of emotion strikes her so hard, she feels tears lodge themselves in her throat.

“Elain,” he breathes, his thumb brushing her cheek as he gently cups her face. “I love you.”

She doesn’t answer him in words. No, she just rises on her toes, places her hands on his shoulders and kisses him. It’s a chaste kiss, barely more than a brush against his lips, but it’s all it takes for Azriel to become undone.

The look of pure, incandescent, unbridled love in his eyes is enough to take her breath away, but she manages to say the words that she’s kept locked behind her lips all night. “I love you, too.”

He stares at her in utter and complete awe. “I don’t deserve you,” he says, his voice thick. He swallows, and something in her heart fractures. For this male who had been deprived, for so long, of the love he deserved.

“Yes, you do. We deserve each other. We deserve this life, this time that we have, and this love that we feel.”

He kisses her in answer, more insistently this time, as if he can’t bring himself to acknowledge this truth, and wants to lose himself in her instead, and she knows that the words have not sunk in completely. That will take time, she understands. For him to view himself as worthy and valuable and irreplaceable. It will take time for him to heal and leave the nightmares and suffering of his past behind. But she would be there with him, beside him for all of it. Because this male, she loved him and she had chosen him, and she would choose him over and over, every time.


End file.
